Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, S.J., (24 October 1682 – 1 February 1761)[1] was a FrenchJesuitpriest, traveller and historian, often distinguished as the first historian of New France,[2] which then occupied much of North America known to Europeans.

According to Louise Phelps Kellogg,[who?] “Charlevoix was not of the temper of the earlier Jesuits of New France. He was by no means a zealot, and had no vocation to deliver himself to a life of suffering and deprivation for the conversion of Indian souls. Rather, he was a man of scholarly temper, interested as an observer in world affairs. […] His was an eager curiosity concerning life, rather than a burning ambition to be himself a moulder of destiny.”[3]

Charlevoix was ordained as a priest in 1713. In 1715, he published his first complete work, on the establishment and progress of the Catholic Church in Japan, adding extensive notes on the manners, customs, and costumes of the inhabitants of the Empire and its general political situation, and on the topography and natural history of the region.

Charlevoix’ work was halted by a royal commission requesting a survey of the historic boundaries of Acadia, recently lost to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht(1713).[10] However, his knowledge of colonial North America led to an extension of his assignment, now to find a route to the Pacific Ocean. Having recently lost control of the Hudson Bay and lacking funds for a major expedition, the French Crown equipped Charlevoix with two canoes, eight companions, and basic merchandise.[11]

Charlevoix went down this river to its mouth and visited the Illinois country . The ship on which he embarked to go from there to Saint-Domingue was wrecked at the entrance of the Bahama Channel. Charlevoix and his companions returned to Mississippi, along the coast of Florida.

Charlevoix' second trip to Saint-Domingue was more fortunate. He arrived in the colony at the beginning of September 1722, set out again at the end of that month, and landed at Havre on December 24.

Charlevoix' records of local geography were later used to improve regional maps. Ultimately unsuccessful in reaching the Pacific, he reported upon his return in 1722 of two possible routes: by the Missouri River "whose source is certainly not far from the sea”, or by the establishment of a mission in Sioux territory, from which contact with tribes further west may have been possible.[12] The purpose of the voyage, according to Charlevoix, was to “inquire about the Western Sea, but [to] still give the impression of being no more than a traveler or missionary.”[13] Charlevoix kept a record of the entire voyage, the Journal d’un voyage fait par l’ordre du Roi dans l’Amérique Septentrionale de la Nouvelle France”[14]

In later years (1733–1755) Charlevoix was one of the directors of the Journal de Trévoux, a monthly journal of literature, history, and science. In 1744 he published his History of New France, drawing on various authors as well as his own observations, thus providing the most comprehensive book on the history and geography of the French colony. His death, at La Flèche on 1 February 1761, prevented him from progressing his history of New France beyond 1736.

Charlevoix' works, enumerated in the Bibliographie des Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus (Bibliography of Jesuit Priests) by Carlos Sommervogel, fall into two groups. Several of his works have maps by the French philosophe (Enlightenment intellectual) and engineer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, which represent the most accurate material of the time.[15]

Histoire de l'établissement, du progrès et de la décadence du Christianisme dans I'empire des japons (Rouen, 1715; English translation, History of the Church of Japan, 1715)

Histoire de Paraguay (1756), an agglomeration of texts originally intended for a proposed “History of the New World.”[18]

Vie de la Mère Marie de I'Incarnation, institutrice et première supérieure des Ursulines de la Nouvelle-France (1724), a biography of St. Marie of the Incarnation, O.S.U., foundress of the Ursulines of Quebec, whose nuns aided the shipwrecked Charlevoix off the coast of Florida.[19]

^Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 1.

^Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 2.

^" The professors all came from France. Scholastics, students of theology, came in their twenties to teach the grammar classes for 2 or 3 years before returning to France. The priests came in their thirties and spent at least a quarter century in New France, alternating between their roles as professor and missionary to the natives. Some devoted themselves entirely to education. The college had among its professors Father Pierre-François-Xavier de CHARLEVOIX, once Voltaire's master, whoseHistoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France was published in Paris in 1744." Collège des Jésuites in The Canadian Encyclopedia]

^Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 2.

^Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 2.

^Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier De. History and General Description of New France. Translated by John Gilmary Shea. Vol. 1. New York: John Gilmary Shea, 1866. 3.